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Afternoon Tea at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel

Contrary to popular belief, living in England for eight years does not make you a tea aficionado.

It makes you a tea addict - an entirely different thing.  I can't remember what I used to drink at work before moving to the UK; but let me tell you, the drink to drink at work unquestionably and unashamedly is tea.  PG Tips, Tetley, Sainsbury's Own... it doesn't matter.  If it's in a bag, it's thrown into a cup, hot water sloshed over the top, and then presented to your coworkers with a smug feeling that you only get by knowing it now won't be your turn for tea-round again for at least a few more hours.

A good cup of builders' tea fills a hole in your heart like nothing else.  It may not be a quality consumable, but if the strength is just right, and the tea-to-milk ratio is perfect - it rivals any delectable meal I've ever had. 

This is completely and utterly separate to the new obsession in life.  I've been taking night classes whilst on maternity leave to become a Tea Sommelier.  Can you love rough-and-ready tea in a mug and still be a tea snob?  I don't see why not.  I still go to Ikea just so I can enjoy a cup of Red Rose with cream in it.  I stop short at questioning the origin and cultivar of the black tea in the limp white bag.  I can still go home and fuss over brewing a cup of Darjeeling (first flush) with a timer and a set of scales, upload my tasting notes to Steepster, and enjoy it just as much. 

So armed with my new tea knowledge, and thirsting to try something interesting, I headed to the Fairmont Palliser Hotel in Calgary with some of my fellow Tea Sommelier classmates to experience their version of Afternoon Tea.

Afternoon tea is something I've mostly always been disappointed by.  Many hotels and department stores in London offer it - and offer it badly.  Office-worker style tea, served with a couple of dry scones pulled straight out of the freezer.  The Palliser is the poshest hotel in town, so I was looking forward to their scrummy ode to this most famous of English rituals.

Beautiful company makes every event better - and my trip to the Palliser was no exception.  My dear tea-snob friends and I sat down in an area reserved for us in the Oak Room and awaited our afternoon feast. 

Mmmm... massed produced factory bread...

I haven't been to the Palliser Hotel in fifteen years or more, but it appears as though nothing has changed.  It's a bit rough around the edges, and considering the rates they charge to stay there, it could do with a bit of an update.  I couldn't fault the service at all - the woman helping us was incredibly helpful and friendly.  (I'm tempted to suggest they bring in rude waiting staff to add to the authenticity of the Britishness of it...)

However, the actual Afternoon Tea itself was (keeping to tradition) completely disappointing.  We were presented with a box of tea bags to choose from.  Most of them were not real teas at all, but fruity infusions and flavoured teas - indicating cheap consumer grade blends.  Thankfully, we were able to choose to have our teas loose rather than in a bag.  (Conjuring up images of the bus-boy in the back, ripping open tea bags and pouring their contents into teapots...)

Overpowering flavours (chemical essences?), bitter tastes, and general lacklustre made our teas an anti-climatic beginning.  They weren't terrible by any means, but we were expecting something a little special - and perhaps at least as good as any of the teas we were drinking at home.

A gratuitous photo of Morgan at the Palliser

And even if the teas themselves were not up to scratch, wouldn't it have been nice if some thought had gone in to the correct brewing temperature for each tea?  Or if we'd been told how long to steep our tea before drinking?

Then came the much-hyped pastries and sandwiches. This is when the disappointment really sunk in.  I can forgive a little if Fairmont doesn't know enough about good tea, or if their target market really does prefer "Very Berry" style infusions.  But I expect... demand even... that the people in the kitchen are given proper ingredients to work with.

Dry scones, limp sandwiches, baguette with the mesh imprint from the factory showing: Not much difference in the level of quality from a sandwich tray at Safeway.  Lemon meringue mini tarts with more (dry) pastry than filling.  Since when does the Palliser buy commercial grade food and not hire a real pastry chef? 

  Don't I recognise those pastries from the freezer section at Superstore?

Surely the patrons paying a premium to dine here deserve better?  Surely this hotel's place in Calgary's history demands better?

Verdict: Average.  Below average if you are a Tea-snob.

Einkorn Bread

There are so many types of bread flour out there, the mind boggles.  I have an entire rack in my kitchen which holds around twenty different bags of flour, all from various millers and producers.  Some of them are just variations of normal wheat - different extraction rates and different millers - and some are interesting varieties of grain, all with their own unique properties.

So I was super nerded-up to find that Doves Farm are really getting into bringing back ancient grains for bread baking.  I'm a huge fan of ancient grains.  Spelt and Kamut flours are already making a huge comeback for their high nutritional value and unique flavours; and I always find it fascinating to bake with the same flour the Ancient Romans or Egyptians would have used. 

Einkorn is one of the newest (or oldest, depending on how you look at it) of these ancient grains.  Grown over twenty thousand years ago in the Middle East, it's even older than spelt.  The Romans let Einkorn die out, as their newer grains grew faster and yielded larger crops.  (A classic example of history repeating itself when spelt went into obscurity because of the high yields of our modern wheat!)

Einkorn makes a very dense, rustic flavoured bread.  At 8.8g of fibre per 100g, it's reasonably high in fibre - and an Italian study showed that Einkorn has more carotenoids than other grains. 

It's quite heavy on its own, so I mixed it 80-20 with white flour to lighten it up a little, and used a white leaven to raise it.  The result was great - a satisfying, nutty, dense loaf.  I'll be using the rest of the bag to try it out as a pizza base, as Doves recommends. 

Einkorn flour from Doves will be available over the summer, but only in smaller healthfood stores, and not the big supermarkets (the best place to buy your flour from anyway!).   Or you can order it online on their website.

 

Burger Monday at Luxe (John Torode's place)

On Monday, I shared a meal with a group of fellow foodie tweeters and bloggers, and Masterchef's John Torode, at his new restaurant in Spitalfields, Luxe.

We were all there to try John's burger for Burger Monday - an event organised by Daniel Young of Young and Foodish (left, with John Torode), on a quest to find London's perfect burger.

We didn't find it here. 

I really and truly wasn't one of the ones who arrived with the intention of "judging the judge".  I'm not a huge Masterchef fan, so wasn't sure what to expect.  But the guy has made a career out of judging promising chefs - he has to know what tastes good and what doesn't, right?

Cue the burgers arriving:

 

On first impressions, not bad.  I'm not a hamburger purist, so I quite liked the idea of putting an egg and bacon on the burger.  The egg was done right, and everything looked juicy and fatty.  The bun was a big improvement over what had apparently been on offer when Dan went to scope the place out earlier.

The Husband had asked for his burger to be done rare, I requested medium rare.   "We don't do medium rare", the waiter informed me, "You can either have it rare, medium, or well done."   Hmmph.  I chose medium, so we could compare the two.  They both looked exactly the same.

Then we noticed the fries.  Oh, the fries. 

We lived in Brighton for four years - we know bad chips.  We've many a time found ourselves in a fish and chip shop on the seafront at 3am, desperate for something greasy, and been placated with cold fries that had been drying under a heat lamp for twelve hours.   And these were much, much worse. 

The burger was weird, too.  I'm not sure it really qualified as a burger - more like a "burger style" meat loaf sandwich.  It totally crumbled apart when I started eating it.  I was sort of hoping for an opportunity to use a Masterchef catchphrase, like "it doesn't get any tougher than this!" - but unfortunately, the meat seemed to have the opposite problem!

For a famous chef judge, and author of a cookbook about beef - this was pretty poor.  And for a restaurant hosting a group of pesky social media foodies hungry for an example of perfection, they couldn't seem to get their act together: three of us were missing the egg on top, and a few more missed out on their side of gherkin. 

Overall, it was a lovely evening of socialising and chatting with fascinating people.  And in a lot of ways, the car crash meal served to us by the Simon Cowell of cooking was a delicious conversation piece.  But those fries.....

Of course the man himself didn't wait around to hear us doing impressions of him sending a contestant home while we ate his food - he scurried away shortly after his introduction. 

John Torode:  You are not going through to the next round.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Penny University by Square Mile

I know this is a food blog.... but I just can't help posting about a swish new place for coffee in London.   Square Mile Roastery has opened a nifty new spot in Shoreditch where you can sample some amazing brew. 

I'm *so* not a coffee drinker - especially since I grew up with Tim Horton's being the best available.  The Husband dragged me along to Penny University on it's second day of opening, and I wasn't really very thrilled. 

However - Penny is more like a "thing to do" in London, rather than a traditional sit-down-with-a-copy-of-the-Times-and-a-skinny-venti-whatever-latte place.   It's like wine tasting.   You sit at a counter and marvel at things like siphons and woodnecks while World Barista Champion 2007 James Hoffman creates a masterpiece of black caffeinated nectar especially for you, while explaining all the while of it's origins and qualities. 

I hate coffee.  But this stuff was pretty darn amazing.  I actually enjoyed it.  I actually drank all of it.   I actually contemplated being a coffee drinker. 

If you're a lover of coffee, then go go go!   But first, read this detailed review from OptionC.   

The Old Mill Café, Llanddowror Wales

Here's a great place we stumbled upon in the middle of Wales, purely by accident, and only because we saw the sign around thirty seconds after we agreed we were both hungry.

The Old Mill Café, which sits on the road through Llanddowror village near Tenby, kind of twinkles when you pull in.  (I'm a sucker for fairy lights.)  It's all rustic looking on the outside, with farm trucks, big wooden tables, and chickens running around.  

The Old Mill Café, Llanddowror

Inside, there are more beautiful chunky wooden tables (all made from the trees behind the café), and comfy sofas.  It looks like some kind of rustic-chic yummy-mummy hangout in East Dulwich.  But in a good way.  You realise you're certainly not in Dulwich when you see the reasonable prices on the board, and when you catch a glimpse of the rooster staring at you from outside. 

This used to be a trucker caff, or "Transport Café", until three weeks ago when they re-opened as a beautiful roadside eatery.  The biker dudes are still in there, drinking tea from massive mugs, but the menu has changed.  Everything on it looked amazing - we had trouble narrowing down our choices.

In the end, we decided on Steak and Ale Pie, and an Aubergine and Chickpea loaf.  Both came with roast potatoes and parsnips, and a plate of fresh steamed veg.  

The rooster clearly wanted a bit of steak and ale pie action

It was all so incredible.  The steak and ale pie had the perfect amount of ale-y taste to it, and the meat was beautifully tender.  The aubergine loaf was ridiculously tasty - I'd like to know what kind of magic ingredient they put in there - tears of Welsh angels?  Pixie dust?  It was amazing. 

Before leaving, we had a look at their farm produce shelf.  We left with a half dozen fresh free range eggs (probably from the girls clucking at us when we walked in), and some Victoria plum, raisin and caramelised onion chutney. 

The trees behind the café that the tables and chairs are made from

I was sad to leave - it's the kind of place we would frequent if it wasn't over two hundred miles away from home.  Friendly, wholesome food, blindingly delicious, and reasonably priced.  I can only hope they'll one day open a second location in East Dulwich.  Lush.

Guerilla Burgers, London

I love a good burger, I do.   Not McDonalds "made of whatever we could scoop off the floor" burgers, or Burger King "this patty's only been under the heat lamp for 6 hours, it'll do" burgers.  But good, juicy, quality beef, succulent burgers.  The kind your mum makes in July for your dad to put on the BBQ, or the kind found in newly opened Guerilla Burgers near Bond Street.

My American friend at work is near-fatally obsessed with cheeseburgers.  She's also one of those hip arty London types that always knows what exhibits are on, or new venues are opening.  (Unlike me, who struggles to remember what night Glee is on).  So when she found out about Guerilla opening a mere ten minutes away from the office, we promptly organised a work team outing to check it out.

It was almost at full capacity on a Thursday lunch time, but the friendly waitress who greeted us when we arrived managed to pull together a table for eight in no time.  We knew we'd made the right decision when the menus arrived.  How are you supposed to choose between things like chili cheese fries, rodeo burgers, and loaded hot dogs?  They even have Brooklyn Lager on the menu - something I've never seen on this side of the planet. Drooling, we finally decided on a variety of things - including cheese burgers, crinkle fries and sweet potato fries.  Glory days!!  

The decor is really well done - the artsy hip people on either side of me made artsy hip comments on the lamps and tables. 

Everything we ate was top notch - the burgers were cooked medium rare, the toppings were fresh and plentiful, the fries were the kind that you can't stop shoving down your mouth no matter how many times you tell yourself you're going to stop and throw your crumpled napkin on top of them to try to block them out of your sight. 

The portions were a great size too - more like the kind your mum makes in July than some massive, gobby American sized portion you could share with 4 people.  I like that. 

We each spent around £10 including drinks.  There were many more things on the menu we wanted to try, including fish tacos and an aubergine burger, so we'll no doubt be back soon.

Apparently it's owned by the same people who own Giraffe - which kind of sprang out of nowhere last year.  So no doubt, there will be many more Guerilla Burgers popping up in the future. 

Masala Masala Indian Sauces

A tasty pot of Masala Masala Daal

It's not often I make Indian food.  I think to make really tasty Indian, you have to be a stay-at-home wife who grinds spices from scratch everyday, or you have to use a jar of Patak's.  I refuse to do either. 

But then the other day, Ocado tempted me into looking at some new sauces by Masala Masala.   I don't normally buy ready-made sauces, but these ones are actually made from only a few ingredients (none that are nasty chemicals that we wouldn't have in our kitchens).  And the thing that really caught my eye was that for every pot of sauce you buy, they will give a homeless person in India a free meal. Isn't that nice? 

Look at the teeny list of ingredients!

...And most importantly... it's darn tasty!  Certainly as good as if I'd taken the day off work to grind up spices in my mortar and pestle.  And one heck of a lot quicker.

Oki-Nami Brighton, what a disappointment!

Since arriving back in the land of dreary skies and signal failures, we've been missing our daily Japanese meals... I haven't really cooked anything Japanese in the past few days.  So tonight we decided to treat ourselves to a rare dinner out in Brighton at a new-ish restaurant called Oki-Nami.  It's part owned by DJ Norman Cook, AKA Fat Boy Slim, and Japanese Chef Mike Dodd.  (Is is possible for a really good Japanese chef to be named "Mike Dodd"?)  From the outside, the restaurant looked really trendy and beautiful... the interior designers certainly got it right.  I think it went downhill from there.

Hilariously, they called Chu Hai their "signature cocktail" in the menu.  Chu Hai is basically the Japanese version of a vodka seven.  It's a Japanese distilled spirit (schochu) in lemonade.  Oki-Nami:  this cannot be your signature cocktail.  Please don't embarrass yourself like this.  And please don't charge £6 for it.

Oki-nami means "big wave" in Japanese.  Which sort of described the big waves of disappointment I felt while perusing the menu. Everything seemed really unimaginative or just plain Westernised.  Perhaps cooking interesting Japanese food is a little too challenging for our "Japanese Chef" Mike?  Or perhaps he's never actually been to Japan, so hasn't read any authentic Japanese menus before?

First things first.... we both ordered simple o-cha (normal green tea) to drink.  In Japan, you get this free when you sit down.  A few minutes later they came over to tell us they had run out.  In a Japanese restaurant.  They had run out of green tea. No problem, we'll have the roasted barley tea.

Second came the edamame.   It was clearly from a bag of frozen edamame, and had been slightly over cooked.  Very average.... I even prefer Wagamamma's edamame. 

Next was the miso soup.  It was in a very slick looking bowl, but it was incredibly salty... much more than it needed to be.  And for £3, it was a very simple miso. 

Then things started getting worse.  We'd ordered a couple of the 'specials' going that night.  The Husband ordered soba noodles in broth with vegetables and tempura.  Interesting, it sounded....  until it came, and you realised how quickly tempura'd vegetables disintegrate in soup.  Tempura needs a SAUCE not a SOUP!  It was only a few minutes before the soup turned into a soggy battered mess.  The "vegetables" were clearly shaken from a bag of Tesco crisp salad mix.  It reminded me of one of those cringy episodes of Masterchef, where the competing chef tries really hard to do something risky to get noticed, John Torode gives it one look of horror, shakes his head, and the chef goes home in tears.

My salmon terriyaki with rice pretty much did what it said on the tin...  some strips of salmon sitting on a bed of rice, with the rest of that Tesco bagged salad shaken over it.  The sauce didn't quite stretch to cover all of the rice, so it was pretty bland.   And it was so simple that I loathed paying £9 for something I could have made myself at home.  (With a lot more flavour, I might add.) 

The final chopstick in the heart was dessert.  I fell in love with green tea flavoured desserts while we were in Japan...  Matcha ice cream, Matcha cake, Matcha pancakes....   so we ordered Green Tea Cheesecake.  When I took my first bite, I started to wonder if the chef had actually tasted any of these dishes himself before inflicting them upon us.  You could barely taste the matcha powder in the very thin layer of 'cheesecake', and the base of the cake wasn't even a proper cheesecake base with graham crumbs...  in fact I can't even tell you what it WAS made of, because it had no flavour - just a sticky tasteless mess.  The most unbelievable thing was the blueberries and raspberries on top of the cake.  We might as well have been eating little sacks of water for all the taste they had.  I've never, ever, ever eaten a blueberry with absolutely no taste... but they managed to find some for us.   Probably in the back of the freezer.

If you've never tried Japanese food, please don't go here - you will incorrectly think Japanese food is disgusting.  I'd rather you keep going to Wagamammas and think it tastes like that.  If you have tried Japanese food and love it, I urge you to send a donation to Oki-Nami to raise some money to send our friends Mike Dodd and Norman Cook to Japan, so they can see what tasty creations a real Japanese chef cooks.  Then they can stay there, open up a burger joint, and leave us the hell alone.

Update:  The Guardian agrees with me...